Mariana Kitchukov said the original inspiration for her dream pool was the Mirage in Las Vegas. The casino and hotel, famous for its flaming volcano and waterfalls, mesmerized her.

"I was amazed at everything: the water features, the fire. That's how it started," she said.

Three years ago, Mariana and Tony Kitchukov started work on their dream pool. It would have waterfalls and fire pits, flowers and streams, palm trees and play areas for her children and her young grandson.

It would take up a huge area on their 1.25-acre lot in a gated community in Gilbert.

Now, their pool has gotten reams of attention - a little too much sometimes for the private homeowners. It has been featured on the Travel Channel and HGTV. And it isn't hard to see why.

The pool really is three separate pools, connected by an open-air ramada housing an outdoor kitchen, large bar, dining area and living room with a towering fireplace and flat-screen television. Around the pools are five waterfalls, seven fire pits, a water slide, 200 tons of boulders and dozens of tiki torches.

There's also a 3,000 square-foot skate park Mariana built for her youngest son, plus a basketball hoop, a putting green and a koi-filled stream with lily pads.

"This is exactly what I wanted," she said. "We wanted to create an outside livable space."

Rick Chafey, co-owner of Red Rock Pools & Spas in Mesa and co-designer of the pool, said it took nine months to design and build the backyard paradise. At one point, more than 100 workers - from stone masons to landscapers - were scrambling to finish it in time for the homeowners' Halloween pool party.

"The biggest challenge was just coordinating that many people, that much labor and that much material," Chafey said. "The last month we pretty much had one guy directing traffic."

There were several changes throughout the project. Mariana first planned the ramada to be a pool house with bathrooms and a closed roof. She decided to make it open-air, using concrete columns painted to look like decorative stone and a 16-foot-tall fireplace to frame the slatted roof. On the back side of the fireplace she added a nod to their Bulgarian roots with a wood-burning rotisserie big enough for roasting lamb.

Mariana said her family now spends most of their time outdoors. And it's a very popular gathering place for friends.

She's most proud of the two Canary Island date palms that were shipped from California and planted between the pools. The pair cost $20,000, including installation after the pool shell was complete.

"They're my two masterpieces," she said, adding they provide "just enough shade, but you still get a suntan."

The trees were the one detail, she said, that caused her husband to question the cost. But she said he has since acknowledged they were worth it, having created a strong focal point. In all, the backyard project cost about $1 million.

The pool also came with a high-tech digital operating system that's about the size of an iPad. The touch-screen control can turn on the pools' hundreds of features in seconds.

"With one touch of a button, you can do 90 different things," Chafey said, adding that they programmed different LED-light combinations to go on with certain fire and water features running for a night or daytime party.

Chafey says the system can be activated via Mariana's iPhone and can start warming up the hot tub when she's an hour from home.

Mariana said she's enjoying the scenery as the lush landscaping continues to change and grow.

In just a few years, the trees and flowers have flourished in their own tropical microclimate. She's always discovering new spots around the yard to stop and enjoy the view.

Today, her daughter has enlisted artistic friends to paint colorful graffiti-style art on the heart-shaped concrete skate park. And they continue to make other improvements to the outdoor destination. There's now a second covered fireplace and outdoor living room with a flat-screen TV near the house; it's near a second outdoor barbecue and the 15-person spa.

Although pools on this scale aren't the norm in the current economy, Chafey said the concept of an outdoor entertaining area is increasingly popular. Rather than simply adding a pool, he said homeowners want to tie in landscaping, outdoor kitchens and dining spaces to create a backyard-entertainment area. In short, they want destinations.

"People are really trying to create that backyard oasis that they can vacation in instead of going on vacation," he said.

The Kitchukov pool also has a few energy-efficient features. In all, the pool holds 130,000 gallons of water and uses 16 pool pumps - several are Pentair IntelliFlo variable-speed pumps that are up to 90 percent more efficient than regular pumps. LED lights, which are more energy-efficient than incandescent lights, are also becoming the standard in new pools, Chafey said.

Overall, Mariana said she couldn't be happier.

"This is one of a kind," she said. "You feel like you're at a five-star resort, but you're in your own backyard."